My Father's Name

My father's full name was Willard Ballentine Reid. That's according to copies of his birth and marriage certificates, and his own CV, written in the mid-sixties when we lived in Winnipeg.

However, his report cards from school have "Ballantyne" as his middle name. I imagine some school administrator spelled my dad's middle name the way the school administrator wanted to, and it never got changed.

All my life I thought he spelled his middle name with a "y", and was blissfully unaware that there might even be the possibility that it was an "e" after the "l"s, and not an "a".

Curious how you can have so much confusion about things like this in a family.

Lies Your City Tells You

Vancouver prides itself on being a green city. They promise to compost your leaves in the fall, so you don't just throw them on the street.

Not only do leaves in the street make a slippery mess for pedestrians and cyclists, but they also block the storm sewers, leading to flooding during the rain storms we get in November and December.

The City of Vancouver promises unlimited leaf collection every week during the Fall.

Like a good citizen, I pick up my leaves and put them in the appropriate containers.

Never have they picked up my leaves, without me calling, or e-mailing, or e-mailing a city councillor. They always give some lame excuse that they didn't get to my street that week because they were busy. Well, if you're that busy, hire more staff. Or stop telling people you pick up the leaves every week.

During the last municipal election campaign a few months back, I tweeted that I wasn't voting Vision (the party in power) because they couldn't even organize leaf pick-up. Someone actually tweeted back that it wasn't the councillor's job to make sure the City met its commitments.

Maybe that's the real problem. Our politicians have completely dropped the pretence that the City should exist to serve its residents. Am I too naive to believe that that's what a city government is for?

3 Degrees No Wind

3 degrees and no wind. Cloudy, but only a few drops of rain here and there. A long-sleeve poly undershirt, my heavy cycling jersey, my cycling jacket, long pants, booties (to keep the wind out), a headband, and a helmet cover. I was warm enough while riding, and got really warm when stopped. But when I was fiddling with some adjustments outside after I got home, I got a bit chilled.

The new Castelli Chiro 3 gloves worked great. I may have finally found the right glove for Vancouver. Thanks, Angela, for the great Christmas present.

3G 2014

The Grunt, Grind and Guzzle, 2014 edition, was tonight. The stats:

The Grunt on bike from Lonsdale Quay (sea level) to the bottom of the Grouse Grind: 23:40 (50 seconds faster than last year). The Grind (the Grind) to the top of Grouse: 43:32 (50 seconds slower than last year). A sad last place in the Guzzle, drinking a beer as quickly as possible.

Thanks to Dale the world's greatest race master, and all the other contestants that made it such a fun event.

The Grunt, Grind and Guzzle

This year's Grunt, Grind and Guzzle, aka the 3G Triathlon, was tonight. My stats:

Bike (rolling time measured by my cycle computer): 24:34
Grouse Grind: 42:40. This year, I almost managed to stick to Sharon "Grinder" Yuen, my pace bunny, all the way up.
Guzzle (down a pint of beer): Third amongst the participants of all three events. One down from last year, since Enzo managed to avoid a DNF this year by getting the beer down his throat, instead of on his lap.

That's a personal best in the first two events. It helps that I'm hauling 3 fewer kilos up the hills this year.

As always, a great event organized by Dale and Sharon. I'm looking forward to next year already.

The Triathlon 2012

Well, my winning strategy didn't work this year. A number of brave friends did all three events. I was the two time defending champ on the strength of being the only person to enter all three events in each of the years.

Enzo crushed us all on the bike. I was second at 27:50 (2:30 slower than last year). Willie kicked everyone's butt, including Sharon "Grinder" Yuen's, on the Grind. I did a PB on the Grind at 44:10 to finish second among those of us who did all three events. I was also second in the Guzzle event, overcoming a brain freeze to finish behind Willie.

Congratulations to Willie the overall champ. Enzo was right up there with him, but a mishap with the beer put him out of contention at the last minute.

A huge thanks to Dale for organizing and continuing the tradition, and to Vaibhav and Larry Arnett who rounded out those who competed in all three events. Also thanks to all the others who participated in one or more events. It was great to see the ICBC crowd again.

The new name for the event is the Grunt, Grind and Guzzle.

Ryder's Riding into History

Ryder Hesjedal is well placed to be the first Canadian to win a grand (three-week) cycling tour. With two days to go in the Giro d'Italia, he's in second place, 17 seconds behind the leader, Joaquim Rodríguez. Hesjedal actually finished 13 seconds ahead of Rodríguez in today's stage, which was a high mountain stage (they basically climbed Mt. Seymour, or worse, four times today over 196 kilometres). Tomorrow they have fewer climbs, but the finish is a 2,000 metre climb, double Mt. Seymour, and steeper.

Sunday's final stage is a time trial, and most observers say Hesjedal is a far better time trialler than the other leading contenders for victory. If today wasn't a fluke, and he has the legs to stay with Rodríguez tomorrow (Saturday) up the monster climb to the finish, all he has to do is stay on his bike on Sunday and he'll easily make up those 17 seconds, and make history in the process.

Go, Ryder, go. Even if you don't care about bicycle racing, now's a great chance to get on the bandwagon and cheer on a Canadian. And for those of us from Saskatchewan, how can we not cheer for a Ryder? (Groan.)

Fixing Bicycles, Breaking the Cycle of Poverty

Ed Luciano at Mighty Riders, my favourite bike shop, has co-founded an awesome program to help people get back on their feet by learning to fix bikes. The program is called Cycle Back. CBC Radio One did an excellent piece on them yesterday morning. You can contribute by buying a bike from the program, or donating old bikes for them to fix. Take the bike to Our Community Bikes or Pedal Depot. You can also give cash, of course.

Mighty Riders is not only the best bicycle shop in the Vancouver area, but they have a heart!

Whinging of an Old Man

Now that I'm "between contracts", I'm getting out for rides on some of my old routes. Today I did the ride to Granville and 71st via UBC, which is just under 60 kms round trip (see my old post for a map). I used to do a lot of 2 hour rides. I'm doing the same rides 5 to 15 minutes slower than I used to. I shouldn't really be surprised, I guess, that I can't ride as fast at 53 as I could at 40, but it still hurts.

Whinging aside, it was a beautiful, sunny day, and not cold by my standards.

The Triathlon 2011 Edition

I won the triathlon with the same strategy that worked for me last year: Be the only person to compete in all three events. :-)

ICBC to the Grouse Grind on bike: 25 m 20 s
The Grind: 47 m 12 s
A beer: Before anyone else finished theirs

PB on the first two.

Ride to Deas Island Park

I rode four hours on Sunday. Here are the stats: 4 h 05 m 00 s, Average Speed: 27.46 km/h, Distance: 112.59 km. That's a flat ride, so the average indicates that I'm not getting any younger. I used to be able to average 33 km/h on flat rides. There was a pretty strong wind, but I had it behind me as much as it was a headwind.

Another big shout out to Mighty Riders. Ed has been helping me with my position. After two recent adjustments, I was able to ride that much time without dying of pain in the feet and the shoulder. I'm not completely comfortable yet, but I'm a lot better than I was last year. And the chafing problem I've had for years has completely gone.

Netflix Blows It

So I gave in to pressures and went to sign up for Netflix. Actually, it appeared to be the model I think I'm looking for -- movies when I want them from the Internet (no cable). I had trepidation about the quality of the image streamed to the TV from my computer, but I was prepared to work on that.

So I sign up, hit play, and they tell me they won't play the movie because I don't use one of their supported operating systems. First bad thing: I know I'm using an off-the-mainstream operating system (Ubuntu), but that's my choice and my decision to deal with. Stream to me in a standard way and make it my problem to make it work.

So I cancel the account. Second bad thing: They force me to view a questionnaire with many complicated questions about why I'm canceling. Third bad thing: My reason isn't on the list, and they don't allow a free format comment.

So I hit "Contact Us". Fourth bad thing: They don't have an e-mail way to contact them.

Do I feel confident that Netflix will actually have a responsive phone system that lets me talk to a human, after the way they've demonstrated that they're not open to my way of doing things? No way.

Netflix, you ain't getting my money.

Jeopardy

A computer is playing Jeopardy. That's nothing. I want to see computers in reality TV: "Survivor: Data Centre Edition". Linux tribe versus Windows tribe. The question: will J2EE servers choose Linux or Windows? Or "Mobile Edition". Will Nokia and Windows be able to beat out the two tin cans with a string between them?

Prove It!

When we were 8-9 year old kids, arguments were punctuated with cries of, "prove it." Marc and his friend Krystian were arguing in the back seat today, when Kristian said, "Prove it. Google it."

Getting Fit to Your Bike Works

When I bought my bike at Mighty Riders, they measured me up to make sure I was buying the right frame. Then when the bike was built they put it in a stand and watched me ride and adjusted it further. It was definitely nice to ride.

However, I was still finding that my feet would go numb after an hour, and other parts would sometimes go numb sooner (I won't name the parts so this blog won't get filtered).

Ed at Mighty said, "Bring it back. We'll check your fit." Apparently, it's now their standard practice to make people come back after they've had their bike for a few months. So we put the bike on the stand two weeks ago and they checked out my style.

First, they made me go buy new shoes. I knew my shoes were on their last legs (ha, ha), but they said the shoes were flexing so much that it would affect my comfort on the bike. Fortunately, Mighty Rider's sister store, On the Rivet, had some good deals on shoes. My feet are a weird shape so I had to spend more than I originally planned, but over the life of the shoes it will amount to about $10 per year to be more comfortable.

When I got back to my bike they had flipped the stem to get my handlebars up a little higher, and changed the angle a bit. They said I should probably get different bars so we can move the brake hoods a bit, but we're leaving that for the next time.

Back on the stand and pedaling, Ed said, "You've got to start the push down with your knee over the crossbar. Think about pushing your foot outwards, not straight down." Fortunately, by chance I'd seen a video clip of someone in the Tour de France this year who was doing exactly that, otherwise I might have thought he was pulling my leg.

I think the pedaling style is probably what has helped the most. I just felt way more comfortable the minute I started to pedal that way. And when I start to feel uncomfortable, it's because I'm forgetting to pedal correctly.

They sure know their stuff at Mighty Riders. After Ed watched me pedal for a few seconds he said, "Go home and measure your thighs by putting a string around them. Your right thigh will be bigger than your left." It was, by more than a centimetre.

Marc's Summer Camp Show

We put Marc in a one week day camp with Stagecoach, a drama arts school (www.stagecoachschools.ca). The staff there did an awesome job of bringing out the best in all the kids, especially with Marc. I'm very grateful for the care and consideration they gave to Marc.

Here's a rough cut of the Friday afternoon show they did. It has the parts that Marc was in (thank goodness YouTube now allows 15 minutes per video -- saved me some editing).

Star Wars Concert

We went to a concert of a full orquestra playing music from the Star Wars movies last night. Marc and I went dressed up, me as Count Dooku and Marc as Anakin Skywalker just before he gave in to the dark side of the Force. I think I was the only guy my age, and in fact the only adult, that was in costume. The things we do to keep our kids happy.

Marcos' San Kumi Test

Marc's test for three stripes (san kumi), June 11, 2010.

The Law

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids both rich and poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.

Anatole France

I saw this years ago in a storefront, and with the miracle of Google all it took was to remember to search for it one day.

Throw Ins

Here's a video on how to do a proper throw-in.